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The arrival of the Dominion expeditionary forces stirred all of Four Seasons to a state of uncertainty, bordering on panic.
What once was the stuff of story and speculation became as real as flesh and steel. Fear spread like wildfire, consuming every town in the twenty counties until they reached Salvación. Upon reaching the ears of the clan heads, they moved quickly to discuss their options. The Dolarhydes and Crowes, the Jacksons and Forresters, but not the Kingsleys. The latter had yet to receive goodwill from the other clans, so remained absent in their meetings. That didn't mean they never knew what went on in the city. Like all other clans, the Kingsleys were proud but they weren't stupid.
They had eyes everywhere, ears everywhere else. And from what they were told, the other clans were shaken to the core.
The meeting was held at noon, in the cool shade of the Dolarhyde manor's palm tree gardens. By then, traces of the debauched celebrations had long been disposed of. Once more, the house was clean, presentable, and every bit the golden standard of living in Four Seasons. In preparation for their esteemed guests, the Dolarhyde servants put up the long Italian maple table to accommodate the clansmen and all their coteries. The patriarch of the household, Godfather, took his seat at the head of the table. He was followed by Junior, who sat to his right, and a curious-looking protectron with a large screen built into its chassis stood to his left. The screen displayed a grainy feed transmitted from Reese Dolarhyde's office, where the proprietor preferred to attend the meeting remotely.
All three were dressed in their finest silk suits of white and gold. Plump little Junior looked like he was about to burst out of his waistcoat, whereas Reese looked like his was two sizes too small.
Wayne Crowe Senior, clan leader and the eldest of four brothers running the horde of rustlers, cutthroats and murderers, stomped his way into place. The man was wide around the middle, but the rest of him was built like sturdy oak. He wore a large overcoat with the fur pelt of a skinned wolf hanging over his shoulders, and his hands were wrapped in leather gloves worn from years of rough living. A large .44 hung from his belt along with a coiled rawhide whip. It was a getup shared by most Crowe men, distinguishing them from other folks of the twenty counties. His handlebar mustache sat firmly upon his cracked and scarred lips, hairs a mess of gray and dark brown. His eyes were bloodshot from whiskey and tears, for Wayne Senior was in mourning.
One of his sons, also called Junior, had been killed not far from where the Dominion expedition had set up base, so by default the blame for his death lay with them. The man's overall demeanor was that of an angry mastiff out for blood, and coming to the meeting he was itching to get the other clans to declare war. It didn't matter to him that the Dominion was a hundred years more advanced than anything Four Seasons had to offer, he just wanted some payback.
Robert Zam Forrester slipped into his seat quickly after being ushered inside the garden enclosure, backed by his two grandsons Nash and Bubba. Robert was somewhere in between the gruff rough-rider persona Wayne and his boys embodied, and the posh elitists that the Dolarhydes styled themselves to be. His clothes were just plain denim and flannel, a work man's attire. But his coat was new, not the kind of patchwork junk most of the working class wore to the outdoors. It was masterfully tanned black leather, bedecked with silver buttons. A bit much, but it fitted the attire of an overseer of Four Seasons' most prosperous farms. Robert was fat, bushy in both brow and beard, and he smelled like fine bread from working the wheat fields daily. The man didn't believe all that much with using machinery in the farms, adhering to the old-fashioned belief of hand-cultivation and honest hard work. His corpulence was merely the result of bountiful harvests, a reward for his efforts.
Nash and Bubba were more or less the spitting image of their father, except that Nash was curly haired and Bubba had none of it. Bubba had a kind of skin condition that put all sorts of ugly scabby lesions on his body and so needed his hide bared to the winds, lest they dry up harder than a wild patch that hasn't been watered in ages. Hence, he kept himself shaved all over. Bald and red from sunburn for most of his days, some folks in Springtown took to call him 'Red'. As for Nash, he styled himself in the garb of a frontiersman, complete with a coonskin hat and brown buckskin shirt with a pair of buckskin trousers to match. The shock of unruly black curly hair made him look like he lived in the mountains, even though he lived all his life indoors.
Finally the last to walk through the doors of the manor was Horace 'Big Daddy' Jackson. The loud metallic footfalls announced his arrival to the entire household well in advance of the man. Big Daddy recently lost his legs in an accident while inspecting one of the workshops. Unwilling to remain crippled for the rest of his life, the old engineer cobbled together some parts from old power-armor harnesses to create a pair of mechanical prosthetics, so that he could move around as though he'd never lost them. Though a noisy pair, sounding his presence off with every step they took, the legs certainly improved his already domineering physique.
Big Daddy wore a suit of metal armor to match the harness, shaped like ironclad overalls that clung to his massive shoulders. His right arm was encased in a pneumatic gauntlet, a crude power-fist with the striking power of a rolling boulder. When he came to Salvación, he arrived with every Jackson gunman at his disposal. They were all armed with every sort of firearm from the late 50's to the present day. Lever-action, pump-action, semi and automatic.
Just like Wayne Senior, he had the face of a man ready to go to war.
"Horace." Godfather nodded, "Gentlemen, now that we're all here, let's begin."
"First off, I wanna say sumthin'." Wayne growled, thumping his fist on the table. "If it ain't war we're talkin', this here meeting's a waste of time. By my son's blood and all the good Crowe boys we lost, I want some justice!"
There was a murmur of agreement from the clansmen, and Godfather tilted his head to the side. "Alright, you said something. Are you ready to listen?"
"I'm with Wayne on this one." Big Daddy spoke up, exasperating Godfather even further. "They have my boy, Bennett. While I don't plan on outright striking first, I wanna know about your thoughts on a more... aggressive approach."
The Dolarhyde patriarch held up his hands to call for quiet, "Gentlemen please, I understand that passions are high on this matter. While there is no doubt that we all will act, and very soon I might add, I also must advise caution. The Dominion army is at our doorstep and it has the power to destroy everything we've built in Four Seasons. Right now, the only advantage we have is that they don't know who we are. They don't know the lay of the land. Our disadvantage, together with being a hundred years behind in firepower, is that we don't know them either."
"Come on, what're ya gettin' at?" Wayne barked impatiently at Godfather.
"We have to play the long game, Wayne, is what I'm 'getting at'. I say we come to the Dominion as friends, find out what it is exactly that they want. Then if we hear something we don't like, we lure them into a sense of confidence and security. And when they least expect it, that's when we hit them- somewhere where it hurts and they never get back up from again."
Wayne didn't like the sound of the plan. It was a weak plan, a snake's plan. Not that he'd never seen it from Bennett Dolarhyde before, but in this case he preferred to be quite conspicuous with his intentions. He argued, blustered and threatened his way as he usually did but could go no further. The Jacksons were in agreement with the Dolarhydes, while the Forresters took to keeping watch over their properties rather than investing in any plan involving the Dominion. If there was going to be an all-out war, he would have to wage it alone. Furious over the decision made by the other clan heads, the patriarch of the Crowe clan stormed out of the manor and took his men with him. With the Crowes gone, everyone let out a sigh of relief.
"I know you too well, Bennett." Big Daddy declared, "You won't be looking for weaknesses in 'em as much as you'll be looking for something to profit from."
"So they killed Wayne Junior." Godfather replied with a casual shrug, "Boy was as reckless as a rabid coyote. From what I hear, he went off to rustle some stock from the old mission- despite my explicit orders to leave them alone. He and his pa, they're shortsighted fools and the whole lot of the clan with them."
"Wayne's gonna try something, you know that right?"
"What little smarts he has, he knows he can't do it without us. Now, I haven't forgotten about your boy. We'll try to see if the Dominion's open for talks, then we negotiate something. If all goes well, this could be a great opportunity- not just for the clans but for Four Seasons entire."
"When you say it like that, you'd think you've already made a deal with 'em."
"It's a gift." Godfather boasted, "So are you still leaning towards an aggressive approach to the matter?"
Big Daddy took his leave, "If your negotiations turn sour, maybe."
As the last clansman left the manor, a young Latino manservant fetching ice water for the guests finished his tasks and quietly slipped away from the grounds. He went through the unseen pathways of Salvación to deliver a message to a waiting cowboy sitting among the shanty towns in the lower region. This man had a crown tattooed into his neck, displaying his affiliations to all who would lay eyes on it. His skin was dark from his mixed African-American and Filipino blood. After hearing all that transpired in the private meeting, the Kingsley man paid his caps and swore the manservant to silence, promising the eventual fall of the Dolarhydes and Crowes.
With his business concluded at Salvación, the cowboy in turn went his way in the direction of the nearby valley to link up with the rest of the clan. They were waiting for him in a hastily pitched camp in the prairie, amounting to fifteen men and one woman. All of them were either Black or Native American and had crown tattoos, just like him. The woman, Elena, was the exception. She was Korean, though a Kingsley woman through and through. Her husband was Lee's brother, who died from poisoned coffee thought to be the work of Crowe clansmen.
At average height of 5'4 with all the rest of her clansmen towering above her, weighed down by thick winter-wear, Elena didn't look like it but she was the de facto leader of the Kingsley clan after it was reduced to a roaming bunch of nomads. They have been driven off their lands by the Dolarhydes and their Crowe cronies some years back, had all their properties and livestock stolen, all of which further fanned the flames of hatred burning between the clans. It was only natural for the Kingsleys to seek revenge, and with the arrival of the Dominion at the borders of Four Seasons, they just might get it.
"Rider approachin'!" The man on watch announced, "It's Lee!"
Elena plucked the stub of her rolled tobacco from her mouth and crushed it under her heel. She patted down her trousers to clear the ash and got up to see her brother-in-law. Lee came by horse, and he was early. She figured whatever he had to say was something big to make the journey back to the prairie.
"Whoa there!" Lee yelled out at his mount and pulled the roan to a stop. He leaned over the saddle to get the word out, "You were right, Elena. The Dominion's got the clans shakin' in their boots. Big Daddy and Godfather are planning on negotiating some kind of peace agreement. Don't know when exactly, but it's happening soon."
Although wishing that Lee had stuck around to know the specifics, Elena figured the other clans wouldn't be all that inconspicuous about their intentions, especially when they were planning on moving out and greeting the invaders. If they moved to meet with the Dominion, the Kingsleys would be well ahead of them. The next step they had to take was beat them to that meeting and get the Dominion to side with the clan.
"Boys, all of Four Seasons' hour of reckonin' is upon them." She declared zealously, "Lee, go to Summertown and meet us by the old station. The rest of you, we ride for the border. The other clans will be grabbin' this opportunity for profit and further their schemes, thereby bringing more ruin on the working folks like you and me. That's not gonna happen."
"Hear hear." The other Kingsleys acknowledged.
With their plan set in motion, the clan departed the valley and rode out into the Wasteland.
In the Dominion staging ground, named Camp Torchlight, things were easing off on Little John. Cooperation yields its own rewards, and the expedition started treating him less as a threat and more of an asset the more he showed his willingness to work with them. Chief among his reasons to cooperate was that the medical teams were taking good care of his dog.
The judge was her usual ice queen self, a real bitch if John was honest with himself. Having been raised in a highly patriarchal society as Four Seasons, the only woman John felt had the right to talk down to him was his own mother- no one else. This woman knew what buttons to push, the kind that set his temper alight. It took all the patience he could muster not to throw hands in the booth. At least the other guy, Nobby Hynes, made his stay in the cold interrogation room bearable. However, the man had this habit of trying to convince John that life under Dominion rule was better than anything else, if he wasn't asking anything about Four Seasons. Almost as if he was trying to convert him into a new religion.
"You comfortable?" Nobby asked him during one of their sessions.
"Actually I am." John nodded, "What is this stuff in the room? Feels like a winter breeze blowing in from the outside."
"Oh that? That's called air-conditioning, got a machine built into the booth to make it happen. You don't have any of that where you're from?"
"Well, Four Seasons ain't all that sophisticated sir. Although I got a feeling that somehow that's 'bout to change."
"Mr. Jackson, we're not conquerors." Nobby stated flatly with a humorless smile on his face.
"Oh? Is that right? I suppose all them war machines you got out back's all for some kind of fancy varmint hunt, and yall are just cleaning up the desert for us?"
"We're reclaimers."
"The difference being?"
"Think of it this way. You own a piece of land, then a storm comes, forcing you and your entire family indoors until it blows over. In the wake of the destruction, some vagrants move in and try to drive you off. Your natural reaction would be one of two things, run or fight back. I expect you'd choose the latter, yes?"
"Maybe, but I sure as hell don't see myself as a vagrant here sir."
"No you're not, but not everyone out here's the same. You see, Mr. Jackson, the entire continent belongs to the American people but they have lost their way. Four Seasons got lucky with having this bit of civilization, yet in other places just beyond the border things are downright hellish. What we're doing is setting things right, bring everything under the rule of law and order. Kick out the bad guys and let civilized folk live without fear."
"If you ask me, we're pretty comfortable with what we've got. We don't need any more high and mighty folks like you breathin' down our necks, tellin' us what and what not to do all the live long day. We've got our own people doin' that same shit."
"But is it enough? Is life better for the average Joe, like yourself? Do you really believe that you're comfortable with what you have, or do you know deep down that the system could be better?"
"Yeah? You sayin' yours is better?" John scoffed, "You don't have some sort of classist society where you're from? No poor people to step on your way to your ivory towers?"
"Yes, it's better." Nobby shrugged, "Yes, we still have poor people but they're not homeless. And no, we don't have ivory towers. Ivory is more valuable for medicinal uses than in construction."
John scratched the bridge of his nose, "Well regardless, it'll take a helluva lot more than that to convince me. You Dominion folks can do what you will, but I guarantee you that Four Seasons is not gonna bend so easily. My people so much as get a whiff of you taking their land, you'll have a war on your hands."
"Oh Mr. Jackson, there won't be a war." Nobby said with a shake of his head, "To be honest, knowing your affiliation and connection with one of the ruling clans in the area, I was hoping you'd be more amenable to diplomatic solutions."
"You threatenin' me now, Nobby?"
"No, I am simply stating a fact. I wouldn't test the might of the Dominion if I were you. The Brotherhood of Steel found that out the hard way."
The door to the booth opened, and in walked Judge Reyncourt. The woman gave John a hint of a sneer of contempt as she approached her colleague, "Nobby, we've got a situation at the perimeter. Time to go."
Nobby stood up and adjusted his armor's chest-piece, "Mr. Jackson, having said all that, we can still be friends."
"You're all heart, Nobby." John said sarcastically. "But you're talking bullshit."
"No, I mean it. As I've stated before, work with us and you'll be rewarded justly. Before the day ends, you'll get to see your dog and in better shape than he was when he got here. When you look at him from now on, there'll be plenty for you to think on what could've and what could be. Have a nice day."
"The hell was that all about?" Kitty asked him when they both stepped out of the room, "You filling the bloke's head with ideas on defection again?"
"Every man, woman or child brought to citizenship contributes greatly to the Dominion." Nobby defended, "Land, you can get that anywhere, people are another thing entirely. Anyway, what's this situation you were talking about?"
Kitty pointed to the main gate leading into Camp Torchlight, where a group of riders were waiting just shy of fifty meters from the perimeter guard. Two Jotun mechs had their guns trained on the leader who was slowly goading her mount forward. Elena Kingsley stopped when the pilots ordered her to keep herself back, unless she and her clansmen wanted to end up on the gore pile. More Dominion soldiers were manning gun turrets on the walls and trenches, all watching the little group for any false moves.
"Know what they want? Not everyday someone just shows up on your front porch, all friendly-like."
"They just wanna talk, or something along those lines."
"So how do you wanna play this out? Stick to protocol or give 'em a show?"
"How 'bout you lead this time?" The judge said, "I'm not feeling diplomatic lately."
"True. If you had your way, you'd just mow them all down and call it a day."
The Kingsleys were fidgeting nervously in their saddles at the sight of the Dominion mechs. They've seen robots, they've seen vehicles of most shapes and sizes, but never mechs.
"Steady there, boys. We're committed now." Elena said. "Don't do nothin' stupid."
"Hello there!" Nobby greeted, offering some much needed goodwill in contrast to the daunting display of the Dominion mechs. "I apologize for the circumstances of our first meeting, but I hope you understand. We all live in a very dangerous world."
Elena nodded, keeping a firm hand on the reins so her mount won't spook from right under her. The man moved closer, a reassuring smile on his dry and sunburnt face. The gleam of the sun bounced against the metal on his prosthetic hand as he stretched it forward, as if to reach out to her.
"I'm Lt. Nobby Hynes, I represent this expedition. As a gesture of good faith, I won't ask you to disarm. However, I must remind you to keep your weapons holstered at all times. Please acknowledge, if you understand."
"Thank you. We got it. You won't have any trouble from me and the clan. We just wanna talk. Can we do that? Talk?"
Nobby put his hands on his hips, "Alright, we can do that."
Slowly, Elena dismounted and approached the lieutenant. "My name is Elena Kingsley, and these are my clansmen. There are other clans, the Dolarhydes, the Jacksons, the Forresters and the Crowes. They will come and try to make peace with you, try and form an alliance with the Dominion but you shouldn't trust them. They did the same to us, now they've driven us off our land."
The man pursed his lips and considered the Kingsleys carefully. He studied their travel-worn clothes, muddied boots, and lean horses. Finally, he decided that their rough living sort of matched their story. "As much as I appreciate you riding all the way here to tell me that, I have to ask why go through all that trouble?"
"We wanna help you Dominion guys take over Four Seasons." Elena declared.
Nobby's brows shot up in surprise, "Well now, that there's some brutal honesty. And what do you guys get out of this?"
"We want our lands and properties back." The woman replied, "And if that means making the other clans bleed, all the better."
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